I always figured Al would write his own obit. He wasn’t the kind of guy to leave the last chapter to someone else.

I could see him mixing himself a martini or three and holing up in his writing lair in the hills above the Valley where he spun his literary magic for more than 40 years.

Giving us a laugh and cry in the same sentence. Letting us appreciate one last time his style and wit.

Maybe his wife, Joanne — aka the beautiful Cinelli — will find it stuck in a book or file cabinet someday, but in the meantime it’s up to his pals to fill in some of the blanks.

Fascinating guy, Martinez. He had a dry, wicked sense of humor and a jeweler’s eye for a great story.

His talent made a lot of reporters in this town jealous as hell, including me.

When we hooked up, it was usually on adjoining bar stools. Al was still at the Times doing two columns a week and I was pounding out four a week at the Daily News, so he always took pity on me and picked up the tab.

The Gray Whale, as we called it, had a much more liberal slant on expense accounts than the other papers in town so I became Al’s “lunch with a source.”

We’d meet at Monte’s in Woodland Hills or Pineapple Hill in Van Nuys where bartender Perry Atkin would hang on Al’s every word like it was coming down from Mount Rushmore.

“Why can’t you write like that guy?” Perry would harass me later.

“Shut up and give me another Bloody Mary,” was the best answer I could come up with.

Al taught me to never share your favorite bartender with another columnist.

He wore his heart on his sleeve, and readers related to that honesty and candor. A Martinez column was something to be savored over morning coffee or put on hold for a cocktail after dinner.

Women would wait to put on their mascara in the morning until they read Al because it was a good bet it’d be running down their cheeks by the last paragraph.

The unspoken ground rules for our monthly one-martini lunch were pretty simple. No talk of family, personal lives, illnesses or anything more serious than a hangover. We had other friends for that.

Al and I talked newspapers and personalities. The good times in L.A. when the Herald Examiner was still alive and reporters on deadline would step over the body of a loved one to beat the competition to a pay phone.

By the time we got to the olives, the vodka had kicked in and we were off to the races laughing like school girls over the Damon Runyon cast of characters we’d written about over the years.

The bail bondsmen, prize fighters, ex-cons and assorted shysters who always had the best stories. That’s how Al and I first met, chasing an ex-con for a column.

His name was Joe Seide and he doubled as muscle and driver for actor Broderick Crawford back in the mid-‘50s when his TV show “Highway Patrol” was a big hit.

Crawford was known to “drinks a bit” as Mr. Bojangles would say. When he started to get popped for DUIs, there was talk of the CHP pulling its sponsorship of the show.

So Seide was brought out from New York to be Crawford’s personal chauffeur and bodyguard. When a fight broke out in front of a nightclub, which it always did, Joe would end it before the cops and photographers arrived.

Fast-forward 30 years and Joe had just gotten out of Terminal Island federal prison after a stretch for income tax evasion when he called Al and I inviting us to stop by his penthouse suite at a local ritzy hotel.

The bum didn’t have a buck to his name, but he always traveled in style by putting the touch on pals for $20 here, $50 there. He touched Al and I more than a few times, but it was worth every sawbuck because it started a friendship that lasted more than two decades.

Toward the end, the doctors wouldn’t let Al have that one-martini lunch anymore, so we switched to iced tea. It wasn’t the same, but what the hell is?

The last time I talked to him was by phone about a month ago. He wanted the number of a guy I had written a column on. He thought he could pitch the guy’s story to the AARP magazine.

COPD — chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — was taking every last breath out of Al at 85, but he wasn’t about to put a “dash 30” on his life — newspaper speak for end of story.

He was still looking for one more shot — that last, great Al Martinez column for his fans to cry and laugh over.

Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Friday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.